Weekly Recap

A new process required for approving even virtual international engagements is currently holding up my work with the Fishing Vessel Ocean observing Network (FVON), so apologies to our international colleagues waiting on movement there. This emergning network of the Global Ocean Observing System is working to help develop best practices for instrumenting fishing vessels with oceanographic sensors. There’s a lot of cool tech out there around the world like ferryboxes deployed on Portuguese blue water trawlers, ADCPs on fishing boats in Japan, multiparameter sensors on pelagic trawlers and seiners in Italy, and Moana TD systems spanning the globe from Australia to the Bahamas. FVON has also been in communication with other Global Ocean Observing System networks like Argo about data best practices so that data collected by fishermen can be high quality and standardized enough to be complimentary to more expensive, traditional ocean observing programs. Participating in groups like this increases our efficiency because we have to spend less time spent solving problems or reinventing wheels that other programs have already figured out. It also increases both the hardware options and data visualizations that we’re able to offer our industry partners by providing opportunities to learn from other regions, and with virtual meetings, there’s no costs to participate. We hope to keep a seat at the table for eMOLT moving forward.

While we didn’t spend much time on boats this week, it was a busy time back in the office. Huanxin and I worked on some example data visualizations for the marine data products meeting hosted by NERACOOS in Ellsworth, ME next Thursday. If you’re a fishermen up in Maine and have ideas about how we can make data more useful to you, or just want to learn what tools are available, you can sign up here. Travel stipends, lodging, and food are provided for industry members. Huanxin and I will be joining remotely from Woods Hole because of the current restrictions on travel to meetings.

Carles from Ocean Data Network finished upgrading the data pipeline from the realtime eMOLT database to the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation’s ERDDAP server. Now, instead of pushing the anonymized, QAQC’d data out to ERDDAP as .csv files (comma-delimited text files), the data arrive as .nc (netCDF – network common data form files). While this change is mostly invisible to people pulling data from the ERDDAP server, it results in substantial performance improvements, with download times decreasing by 30-40%.

Over at the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation, Linus has been working on improving the serverside routines for FIShBOT, a gridded, in-situ bottom temperature product for our region jointly developed by Linus, Sarah Salois, Mike Morin, and me. We’re also plugging away on a NOAA Tech Memo to describe the data processing behind this product, so stay tuned for more info.

The teams at Lowell Instruments, Coonamessett Farm Foundation, and Rutgers University identified a hardware problem that may impact your deckbox if you have an external GPS receiver. Some of these systems were installed with a 90 degree BNC connector. Several of these connectors have failed unexpectedly, causing the box to display error messages and lose contact with GPS satellites. Luckily, the fix is easy, just remove the 90 degree adapter and connect the antenna directly to the box (see pictures below).

Figure 1 – A) a 90 degree BNC connector means the antenna wire will point off to the side or back of the box. This connector can fail and should be removed. B) Once the connector is removed, the antenna wire will point straight up.

Here at the NEFSC lab in Woods Hole, Hannah C. from the Bottom Longline Survey team has been lending a hand prepping all of the dissolved oxygen sensors for deployment in the next few months. This process involves cleaning biofouling off, replacing batteries and dessicant packs, greasing or replacing o-rings, and running calibration checks to see if the sensor heads need to be replaced. We also had our first Cooperative Research Branch survival suit races in preparation for the upcoming field season. Groundfish conversion project scientist Dan G. blew most of us out of the water, with a time of 32 seconds and Lizzie A. from the Hook and Line Survey team came in a close second. I finished last with a (barely) buzzer beater 60 second time. Guess I’ve got some practicing to do.

This week, the eMOLT fleet recorded 229 tows of sensorized fishing gear totaling 552 sensor hours underwater. The warmest recorded bottom temperature was 50.6 F east of Block Canyon in approximately 95 fathoms (red profile) and the coldest recorded bottom temperature was 38.9 F east of Three Fathom Ledge in approximately 40 fathoms (blue profile). Below, you can see these profiles plus a few other temperature profiles of interest across the region from the last week.

Figure 2 – Temperature profiles collected by eMOLT participants over the last week. The blue profile is where the coldest bottom temperature was measured and the red profile is where the warmest bottom temperature was measured. All other colors are assigned randomly. Colored points on the map indicate where profiles of the same color were collected. The small dark green dots represent other profiles collected this week, but not highlighted in the plot. Note that the warmest / coldest bottom temperatures measured could have occurred during gear soaks, which are not represented on this profile plot.

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